Dunwoody Developer’s Dream

The AJC, July 28, 2016, page B7 reported that the Dunwoody Development Authority was considering a deal with Atlanta Office Investment LLC and Transwestern Development Co. LLC to issue revenue bonds totaling $780 million to build two additional office complexes at Perimeter Mall. 

The article indicates that the City of Dunwoody would buy these office buildings from the developers and become the landlord. The Dunwoody Development Authority held a meeting on July 28 at City Hall to discuss these projects.  The Development Authority is a board of 7 citizens, appointed by the Dunwoody City Council to make development decisions. The City Council does not have veto authority over this volunteer board.

If this is all true, it removes voter oversight from financial dealings that would affect their taxes and the Georgia Legislature is responsible for this “taxation without representation” law we saw operate in the Braves’ stadium move to Cobb.  I’m sure the Georgia Legislature believes that voters would not approve these deals, so they wrote the law to circumvent voter interference.

Dunwoody is a tiny city occupying 13 square miles.  Roswell and Sandy Springs occupies over 40 square miles. The City of Dunwoody was formed to control zoning and Dunwoody voters should have limited their charter to zoning like Tucker did.  Dunwoody is “built out” and has very little undeveloped land, so “in-fill” development is the norm.  But high density in-fill development causes problems, like traffic and the loss of neighboring property values.

I am no fan of corporate welfare of any kind, so I wonder why State government has allowed Private Public Partnerships, outsourcing government duties to corporations, corporate subsidies and corporate bail-outs. These ventures tend to fail because they are ill-conceived.

I want to see government put back in its box to maintain roads and provide sanitation, sewage treatment and clean water distribution.

Providing office space for an additional 7500 employees at Perimeter Center Improvement District (PCID) has its risks. We have just experienced the conversion of office space to town home development in Dunwoody.  The “global economy” is contracting, unsustainable government debt is growing and US laws continue to encourage moving operations overseas. It’s not hard to imagine that these office buildings could become empty as soon as the music stops.

It appears that investors are playing “musical chairs” with their investments; waiting to the last minute to pull out of their investments and avoid ‘holding the bag’.  We see this version of ‘hot potato’ in the markets and the worst place to be is as the landlord of an empty building.

But if developers have State laws that allow them to cut and run and voters who are naïve enough to allow their cities to have “Development Authority’, they will try to get Development Authorities to help them do that.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader